Things Trek in general could have done better?

[at Quark's]

^Not really sure I get your point.

The fact that they allude to her 'borgness' in a similar way they allude to e.g. B'elanna's 'Klingonness' or Tuvok's 'Vulcanness', in my eyes doesn't make the Borg "culture" in fact similar to Vulcan or Klingon culture.

 

[Voth commando1]

"Borgness" means her personality, mannerisms, and attitudes. Not "culture" per se.

 

[Mojochi]

Either way, the end result is the same, another main character from a monotypically behaving group, like Vulcans, Klingons, Ferengi, etc...

 

[The Wormhole]

I think Starfleet is primarily a human organization.

Azetbur was on to something when she called it a homo sapien only club.

 

[Voth commando1]

Either way, the end result is the same, another main character from a monotypically behaving group, like Vulcans, Klingons, Ferengi, etc...

You honestly don't expect aliens to have some the patterns of behavior as humans do you?

The Vulcans society is organized around the teaching of a stoic. The Klingons are a militaristic almost feudal society. The Ferengi are an ultra capitalist society where anything other than the accumulation of Latinum is frowned upon.

Their not supposed to be "diverse". Now of course there are always outliers-B'lanna. Rom, and what not. But they aren't supposed to be as human individuals.

 

[Prax]

Humanity transforms these poor monocultures into real people. Just look at quark. He went from an apelike greedy Ferengi cracking laserwhips to a respected community man. And it was all because he was blessed to be in the presence of humanity. Or Worf: remember Worf in season 1 TNG? He went from a knuckle dragging primitive to a good man with a good fashion sense. He developed a dry wit, and even wore cologne...Yes, he was also blessed by our presence.

-Neelix & Kes
-Nog & Rom
-T'Pol, Spock, and Tuvok

Where would these people be without God's gift(humanity) to alien cultures?

They'd be losers, that's what!

 

[Captain Clark Terrell]

Their not supposed to be "diverse". Now of course there are always outliers-B'lanna. Rom, and what not. But they aren't supposed to be as human individuals.

The problem with this line of thinking is that it makes no sense. Why wouldn't another race of intelligent beings be at least somewhat diverse? Even cultures that emphasize a particular set of values won't be homogenous.

 

[Prax]

They would to outsiders. Every culture has tendencies, norms, genetic traits, values, etc that are unique to that culture. We see plenty of diversity in Trek aliens, we just don't very often see multiple cultures. This is because each world is a macrocosm representative of a city or country. The ship sails the high seas visiting different exotic locations.

If humanity was under a centuries old one world government, they would probably be a monoculture unto themselves. And I suppose on Trek they sort of are.

But yeah, we do see diversity within those monocultures.

 

[Mojochi]

You honestly don't expect aliens to have some the patterns of behavior as humans do you?

The Vulcans society is organized around the teaching of a stoic. The Klingons are a militaristic almost feudal society. The Ferengi are an ultra capitalist society where anything other than the accumulation of Latinum is frowned upon.

Their not supposed to be "diverse". Now of course there are always outliers-B'lanna. Rom, and what not. But they aren't supposed to be as human individuals.

The issue isn't diversity, it's that their interpretation of diversity is that these cultures would be monotypical. ONE trait defines them, one trait that humans also conspicuously possess among their many traits. It's limiting. It's creatively shortsighted imho, & the only reason they seem to do it, is so that they can have their one example, Worf, Spock, Quark, etc... that "Learns" to grow away from it, inevitably into a more well rounded individual, which just happens to be more human acting

 

[Bad Thoughts]

My piddly thread inspired all this? And it took me three months to notice?

I need to get out of the DS9 forum more often.

 

[Voth commando1]

My piddly thread inspired all this? And it took me three months to notice?

I need to get out of the DS9 forum more often.

DS9 isn't the only Trek you know...

 

[Mojochi]

DS9 isn't the only Trek you know...

Some would say it doesn't even qualify AS a Star Trek. lol

 

[velour]

The issue isn't diversity, it's that their interpretation of diversity is that these cultures would be monotypical. ONE trait defines them, one trait that humans also conspicuously possess among their many traits. It's limiting. It's creatively shortsighted imho, & the only reason they seem to do it, is so that they can have their one example, Worf, Spock, Quark, etc... that "Learns" to grow away from it, inevitably into a more well rounded individual, which just happens to be more human acting

You are right about that.

One of the most glaring examples of that was Worf's behavior in "The Ship" (DS9). I saw this episode not too long ago, so it's still somewhat fresh in my mind.

Sisko and his landing party took refuge in a downed Jem'Hadar ship. One of the men, Muniz, was seriously wounded. He happened to be one of O'Brien's underlings. Worf and O'Brien almost came to blows because Worf kept insisting that the wounded dude was a goner; that it would be better for O'Brien to put an end to Muniz's suffering because that would be a more honorable death; and that O'Brien was just another weak human afraid of facing death.

Worf showed zero compassion for Muniz. Worf was behaving like a Klingon, even though his behavior may have been obnoxious and insensitive to a human. Worf is what he is. And his culture is what it is.

However at the end of the episode, Worf, all of a sudden, became compassionate. He went to the cargo bay to sit alongside O'Brien, who was keeping Muniz's body (which was in a torpedo casket) company. Worf went against his Klingon instincts and culture. He suddenly "discovered" his humanity instead of being what he is.


On a side note, Worf's explanation for his presence was that there is a Klingon tradition that when a warrior dies, his comrades stay with the body to keep away predators in order to give time for the spirit to go to stovokor. How come we never heard of that tradition before?

Was Worf making up this tradition? Previously, we were told that a Klingon's dead body was nothing but an empty shell that didn't need any further respect paid to it.

 

[Mojochi]

How come we never heard of that tradition before?

Because primitive guy's primitiveness is primitive in whatever primitive way we need at the time. lol

 

[The Old Mixer]

So Klingon culture has two different views of how dead bodies should be treated? Maybe that's a little of the diversity that they allegedly don't have....

 

[Bad Thoughts]

DS9 isn't the only Trek you know...

Considering I encouraged some constructive conversation, albeit in a small way, I doubt my own personal provincialism is much of a problem.

 

[Mojochi]

So Klingon culture has two different views of how dead bodies should be treated? Maybe that's a little of the diversity that they allegedly don't have....

Treating it like trash vs treating it like something may gnaw it to pieces, isn't much of a deviation from the monotypical barbarian culture thing imho.

 

[FormerLurker]

The Ferengi are an ultra capitalist society where anything other than the accumulation of Latinum is frowned upon.

The Ferengi actually don't care one bit about the accumulation of Latinum, gold-pressed or otherwise. Latinum is their means to an end. Their primary speciation is the accumulation, not of wealth, but of STUFF. They're humanoid packrats. Their greed is almost exclusively for possessions, and only includes Latinum as their primary means toward the accumulation of possessions. Remember, Quark didn't boast about his cousin having Latinum, but about him having a moon.

 

[Voth commando1]

The Ferengi actually don't care one bit about the accumulation of Latinum, gold-pressed or otherwise. Latinum is their means to an end. Their primary speciation is the accumulation, not of wealth, but of STUFF. They're humanoid packrats. Their greed is almost exclusively for possessions, and only includes Latinum as their primary means toward the accumulation of possessions. Remember, Quark didn't boast about his cousin having Latinum, but about him having a moon.

True I will admit however according to profit and lace the ferengi were not always like this. Apparently more than ten thousand years in the past accumulation wasn't so highly valued. The prophets reverted Zek to that attitude.

 

[ewoodcourt]

Relationships, particularly romantic ones. They never seemed to get a grasp on well paced romantic relationships - you'd get one "this is the relationship episode" then nothing for a while. None of the main romantic relationships were particularly compelling to me - I'm thinking particularly of Tom Paris/B'elanna Torres on Voyager - when I first watched the episode where they professed their love for each other I remember thinking "these two? really?" (and the less said about Seven/Chakotay the better)

I also agree with other posters who have said better representation, particularly of non-humans (would love to see more aliens on the bridge) and LGBT+ people (it kills me that in 50+ years we've only had two main bridge characters confirmed as non-straight). I also would love to see female characters get decent uniforms not clingy catsuits and horrible bras (*cough cough* seven of nine *cough cough* T'pol).